Rabies Vaccine

To help control raccoon rabies along the Interstate 4 corridor, state officials will start a widespread baiting operation this month. About 700,000 bait packs containing an oral rabies vaccine will be dropped for several weeks in six counties including Polk and Lake, Florida Agriculture and Consumer Services Commissioner Charles H. Bronson said. The bait will attract raccoons, which are the primary carriers of rabies in Florida. "Our goal is to control raccoon rabies in this highly populated area," Bronson said.

Lake County Animal Services will be holding the first of multiple rabies vaccination clinics starting this month. The first clinic will be held from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, March 22 at the shelter, located at 28123 County Road 561 in Tavares. The adoption hours at the shelter are from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. “One of our main goals is to encourage residents to come in and adopt a shelter pet,” said Cyndi Nason, manager of the Lake County Animal Services Division, in a news release.

Eight years after it developed a genetically engineered rabies vaccine, a Philadelphia research institution gained final approval Monday to conduct the first outdoor field trial of the vaccine in the United States. Scientists said that if the trial on this barrier island is successful, the vaccine could become the key to controlling epidemics of rabies infections that have broken out in wild animals across the country. Next Monday, scientists plan to spread bait containing the vaccine throughout the 7,000-acre island.

GLOUCESTER — A skunk killed by two dogs in Ware Neck last week has tested positive for the rabies virus , the fourth confirmed case in Gloucester this year. The skunk entered a dog pen and was killed near the intersection of Ditchley Drive and Lightview Lane on Thursday, said David Demuth, senior environmental health specialist for the Gloucester Health Department. Both dogs were current on their rabies vaccinations and will receive rabies vaccine booster shots and will be monitored for 45 days, Demuth said.

Researchers began spreading bait Monday across an uninhabited, isolated island off Virginia's Eastern Shore to test a genetically engineered rabies vaccine on raccoons. The researchers put out 4,000 samples of bait, small pieces of soft plastic tubing treated with fish oil to give them a pungent aroma. Warren Cheston, associate director of the Wistar Institute that helped develop the vaccine, said the bait will be left out for 10 days. Some of the island's animals then will be captured and tested to see if the vaccine made them produce antibodies to fight the rabies virus.

Q: I've stepped outside the law because Washington State recently passed a rabies vaccine law that doesn't allow for exceptions. My dog had a life-threatening reaction to his first rabies vaccine, and is definitely not going to get another one. Do I have any recourse? -- C.S., Cyberspace A: One of the world's experts on vaccinations for pets is Dr. Ron Schultz, professor and chair of the Department of Pathobiological Sciences at the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine, Madison.

ORANGE COUNTY -- Need a free rabies vaccine for your pet? Does your dog continue to get loose no matter what you do? Do you have a pet that has unwanted puppies or kittens? Orange County Animal Services has announced a Pet Amnesty Day scheduled from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday at Goldenrod Park. During this outreach and education event dogs and cats older than 4 months can receive a free rabies vaccine. And you can talk to an animal expert about pet-related issues in your community. You can also bring in any unwanted dogs or cats during the amnesty period to offer them up for adoption, at no cost to you and with no questions asked.

GLOUCESTER — A skunk killed by two dogs in Ware Neck last week has tested positive for the rabies virus , the fourth confirmed case in Gloucester this year. The skunk entered a dog pen and was killed near the intersection of Ditchley Drive and Lightview Lane on Thursday, said David Demuth, senior environmental health specialist for the Gloucester Health Department. Both dogs were current on their rabies vaccinations and will receive rabies vaccine booster shots and will be monitored for 45 days, Demuth said.

A new artificial hand under development at Rutgers University might eventually give amputees the ability to type, play the piano and mimic a real hand more closely than anything now available. The hand works off the movement of tendons - the fibrous tissue in the arm that would connect muscles to the fingers if the fingers were still there. When a person loses a hand, those tendons often are left in place and still work. Rutgers scientists have attached a sensor that translates the movement of the tendons to a digital signal, which is sent to an external computer that controls the mechanical hand.

Travel the Oregon Trail at 7:30 p.m. today as Joan Gathings, president of Pastfinders of South Lake County, presents a historical perspective on the old wilderness trail during the monthly meeting of the genealogical group at Cooper Memorial Library.Using an 1857 log kept by a distant relative and wagon master on the Oregon Trail and other personal research, Gathings will discuss the hardships pioneers faced during their six-month treks on the trail.The April 19 rummage sale at NationsBank to benefit the genealogical department of Cooper Memorial Library also will be discussed.

Q: My 6-year-old Maltese seems pretty healthy to me, but my veterinarian still insists that the dog get vaccines every year. A holistic vet told me that since dogs just stay home and walk around the block, in reality, vaccines aren't needed every year. He went on to say that veterinarians give the injections, knowing this is a risk to pets' health, so they can make money. Do you believe these yearly vaccines are necessary? -- R.R., Cyberspace A: "Vaccines serve a real purpose.

Q: I've stepped outside the law because Washington State recently passed a rabies vaccine law that doesn't allow for exceptions. My dog had a life-threatening reaction to his first rabies vaccine, and is definitely not going to get another one. Do I have any recourse? -- C.S., Cyberspace A: One of the world's experts on vaccinations for pets is Dr. Ron Schultz, professor and chair of the Department of Pathobiological Sciences at the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine, Madison.

ORANGE COUNTY -- Need a free rabies vaccine for your pet? Does your dog continue to get loose no matter what you do? Do you have a pet that has unwanted puppies or kittens? Orange County Animal Services has announced a Pet Amnesty Day scheduled from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday at Goldenrod Park. During this outreach and education event dogs and cats older than 4 months can receive a free rabies vaccine. And you can talk to an animal expert about pet-related issues in your community. You can also bring in any unwanted dogs or cats during the amnesty period to offer them up for adoption, at no cost to you and with no questions asked.

To help control raccoon rabies along the Interstate 4 corridor, state officials will start a widespread baiting operation this month. About 700,000 bait packs containing an oral rabies vaccine will be dropped for several weeks in six counties including Polk and Lake, Florida Agriculture and Consumer Services Commissioner Charles H. Bronson said. The bait will attract raccoons, which are the primary carriers of rabies in Florida. "Our goal is to control raccoon rabies in this highly populated area," Bronson said.

LAKELAND -- Hundreds of thousands of rabies-vaccine doses will drop from the sky during an air-drop along the Interstate 4 corridor this week as part of a nationwide effort to contain the deadly virus. Polk County officials will join state and federal authorities in the Florida Oral Rabies Vaccine Program, which begins Wednesday and is funded mainly by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services. The program coincidentally starts just days after a 3-year-old Lakeland girl was attacked in her yard by a rabid fox. The girl, Savannah Baars, suffered scratches and is being treated with rabies vaccine.

ROME, Ga. -- Raccoons in parts of Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee may find a special treat while they're making their nocturnal rounds to gather food from garbage cans and roadsides. In response to an increase in raccoon rabies cases, health workers are distributing 400,000 doses of oral vaccine to prevent the spread of the disease in a 12-county area of northeastern Alabama, northwestern Georgia and south-central Tennessee.

After a 10-day quarantine for rabies observation, a healthy 3-year-old German shepherd was destroyed Wednesday by the Humane Society of South Brevard just hours before the dog's owner called to retrieve his pet.Humane society officials called the incident an unfortunate misunderstanding, but Joseph Cantrell, the dog's owner, called it murder.''I've got an animal that was murdered because of someone's mistake,'' said Cantrell, a 40-year-old Orlando Sentinel route driver who lives in Melbourne Beach.

The state will start a program Monday to curtail a rabid threat along the Interstate 4 corridor. No, it's not raging drivers stuck in traffic. It's raccoons infected with rabies. The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services will drop about 500,000 bait packs -- a matchbook-size fish-meal block containing oral rabies vaccine -- from airplanes, helicopters and trucks in an attempt to reduce the threat of the virus in Central Florida. The program, paid for with a $750,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is the first phase to eliminate the rabies virus statewide, said Charles Bronson, commissioner of the state agriculture department.

The state will start a program Monday to curtail a rabid threat along the Interstate 4 corridor. No, it's not raging drivers stuck in traffic. It's raccoons infected with rabies. The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services will drop about 500,000 bait packs -- a matchbook-size fish-meal block containing oral rabies vaccine -- from airplanes, helicopters and trucks in an attempt to reduce the threat of the virus in Central Florida. The program, paid for with a $750,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is the first phase to eliminate the rabies virus statewide, said Charles Bronson, commissioner of the state agriculture department.